I’ve never set up a Facebook Fanpage for my own music (The Horrorist). When I originally joined Facebook it was reluctantly because MySpace was still a living community and it seemed redundant. To top it off the music features in Facebook were seriously lacking. Two external services, one which ties into Soundcloud have changed my mind.
RootMusic helps you design a proper “Bandpage”. It pulls your music from SoundCloud and allows you to make something actually album cover like. In other words your not stuck in tiny font slash baby blue Facebook land. RootMusic also easily pulls in Vimeo, Youtube videos, photos from your Fanpage, and your Twitter and RSS feeds.
Lastly, it has integration with ArtistData. ArtistData takes your show dates and puts them all over your social media sites (Facebook, MySpace, Eventfull…) so you don’t have to do the repetitive task yourself.
For a much more detailed review of RootMusic check out this write up on TechCrunch titled, “Musicians – This Is How You Create A Great Looking Facebook Page”: click here
The Horrorist Facebook fan page: listn.to/TheHorroristmusic
This entry was written by , posted on June 28, 2010 at 4:23 am, filed under business, promotion and tagged ArtistData, Facebook, Rootmusic, SoundCloud. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I try not to cross post too much between Wire to the Ear and my record label’s site Things to Come Records. However, when I leave for a few days to perform it’s good to let you guys know why the posts were light. In any case, the photos above are from my live show in Stuttgart at the Lehmann club. I played a bunch of new songs live for the first time. I’m going to make a deadline for my album this week. I think sometime late September. I’m seriously considering releasing it all myself with Tunecore, Beatport and Amazon CreateSpace for CDs. It’s not really about money; I have a well paying day job for that now but I have noticed that the stuff I released myself made me 10x what I made when I signed my music to other labels. So the lessons for today: Deadlines have to be and doing it yourself is the way to make cash in music in 2010.
For more info:thingstocome.com
This entry was written by , posted on May 25, 2010 at 4:47 am, filed under business, live performance and tagged business, Germany, Lehmann Club, Stuttgart, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Today I would like to welcome a new sponsor at Wire to the Ear: Wave Alchemy. You can see there advert running on the top right sidebar of this blog. I’ve turned down a lot of advertising requests from companies that were totally unrelated to pro-audio. Why diamond and shoe companies think this is a good place to advertise I don’t know! Wave Alchemy are based out of Nottingham in the UK. They sell sample libraries that are 100% royalty free and every sample is 100% original (not ripped from vinyl or anywhere else). Even if your not ready to buy anything it’s worth a visit to their site because each pack has a free sample set. There’s also a few totally free sample packs such “Club Kicks” and “Odyssey FX”. Robert Babicz (Rob Acid), Chris Lake and Martin Eyerer are a few of the artists using Wave Alchemy’s stuff.
I hope you welcome them as it does help Wire to the Ear stay on your computer screen.
For more info: http://wavealchemy.co.uk
This entry was written by , posted on April 23, 2010 at 3:47 am, filed under business, sounds and tagged Dan Byers, drum samples, samples, sound effects, sponsor, Steve Heath, Wave Alchemy. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Sometimes I like to sit back on the couch with my iPhone and troll through SoundCloud or Last.fm tracks. Happily now I can add Beatport to the list. The new Beatport iPhone App is free. You can find my own music on Beatport: click here
“The Beatport iPhone App lets you access Beatport’s music catalog on your iPhone. Browse, listen, and add music to your cart all while on the move. Filter through Beatport’s extensive library using: 1. Expertly selected featured releases updated weekly 2. Artist charts from the most relevant DJs and producers in the world 3. Overall and genre-specific Top 100 sales charts 4. Powerful search function. The Beatport iPhone app’s persistent preview player allows you to dive deeper into Beatport’s vast electronic music catalog without missing a beat. Simultaneously browse the app while listening to high quality audio previews.” – Beatport.com
Grab the new Beatport App: click here
This entry was written by , posted on April 21, 2010 at 10:43 am, filed under business, promotion and tagged Beatport, iPhone. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Why pay some smug superstar DJ 5k to remix your track when you can crowd source something better for free? SoundCloud posted a super detailed explaination on how to do it using their pretty service. Sometimes I post things on Wire to the Ear solely so I can remember, find and use the info later… this is one of those posts.
“Your remix group will be where people submit their finished remixes. It’s quick, free and easy to create a group: add a logo, background info and let people know if you want the submissions to be downloadable or not.” – SoundCloud.com
To check out the full instructions click here: 5+1 Easy Steps To Set Up Your Remix Competition With SoundCloud
I’m on SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/thingstocome
This entry was written by , posted on February 23, 2010 at 6:48 am, filed under business and tagged competition, remix, SoundCloud. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The 2010 NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) starts today at the very large Anaheim Convention Center. It’s one of the largest shows of it’s kind only rivaled by Musikmesse. Noise nerd and gear junkies are going to hear about a lot of new tasty music equipment over the next few days.
“Despite severe regulations on the permissible noise level, sound level meters carried by NAMM personnel routinely exceed the 85 dBA maximum throughout most of the main exhibit hall, simply from the constant background noise.” – Wikipedia
Here’s some links to help you keep up with everything that’s going on:
The official NAMM homepage and Twitter feed:
http://www.namm.org/
http://twitter.com/namm
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAMM
Coverage…
CreateDigitalMusic:
http://namm.noisepages.com/
SonicState:
http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shows.cfm?show=wnamm10
Harmony-Central:
http://namm.harmony-central.com/WNAMM10
When the smoke clears I will post my 2010 Wire to the Ear NAMM picks! Enjoy the show and let me know what you think is hot.
photo credit: annethelibrarian
This entry was written by , posted on January 14, 2010 at 5:44 am, filed under business and tagged 2010, NAMM. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I took this photo near Madison Square Park yesterday while waiting for the bus home. I wonder if these advertisements actually work. I guess I should have pulled the paper up a bit to expose the contact info. In NYC there are often a groups of Hip Hop artists on corners that try and put their CDs in your hands. If you take one they follow you and ask for a few bucks for it. I think a better way to make money on the street is to actually play music and have a few things for sale on the spot. I remember seeing a story about a guy in LA who had some techno gear selling a few CDs an hour at $20 each. If your looking for some free hipster subway music in Brooklyn hang out in the Bedford Ave L train stop on Friday night. I do try and throw a buck into a guitar case every now and then.
This entry was written by , posted on December 15, 2009 at 6:00 am, filed under business and tagged musician, work. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37wR_TWdVy0
My boss at Energy Management Solutions never procrastinates. Anytime I think of an idea he hands me the phone and tells me to do it. I’ve never met anyone quite like that. I like to get things done but I’d say I do my share of fiddling and pondering. Sometimes when you sit down to make a song it’s way too easy to procrastinate. You have a playground of sounds and tools you can play with. Heck it all starts with a loop. A loop! Better stop listening to loops and get to the arrangement.
“Procrastination is making a cup of tea.” – John Kelly
via Laughing Squid
This entry was written by , posted on November 21, 2009 at 5:48 am, filed under business, political and tagged Procrastination. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
BandCamp is a one of the nicer services musicians can use to sell their music. A clean interface, great PayPal integration and stats are all on the table. They have just released an update to the service which allows you to sell physical merchandise along with your digital download. The new best feature is the inventory tracking. Say you have 100 records to sell each time someone buys one the number drops. What has my thinking is all the left over stock I have of old releases. Fifty here, ten there, I can see BandCamp a good place to sell these. You can see a BandCamp page I set up for Arrivers (the first release on my record label released in 1996) here: http://arrivers.bandcamp.com/
“Starting today, you can sell both your physical merchandise and your digital music from Bandcamp, and better yet, you can sell them together. So, for example, you can easily create a vinyl, poster and download package, give your fans the digital files immediately, and then ship out their merchandise.” – blog.bandcamp.com
For more info: bandcamp.com
This entry was written by , posted on November 19, 2009 at 6:01 am, filed under business and tagged Bandcamp. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Read above. I live by that and so should you. The price you accept is the price your worth. This is how you must price your work. Got it? Click the image to download a wallpaper so you remember.
via greyscalegorilla
This entry was written by , posted on November 17, 2009 at 6:28 pm, filed under business and tagged lesson, price, work. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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